More Than Just a Plant
by Novemberst0rm
Summary: Mims has grown up with a plant that she loves more than life itself... perhaps enough to kill for it.


Chapter 1  
"Does this look inanimate to you, Punk?"

I stared at the picture of the young girl. I laughed a bit at the way her mouth was showing more of a grimace than a smile. The hand that was gently placed on her shoulder belonged to another, much older figure, whose eyes showed the gleam of a genuine smile. I love this picture for so many reasons; for the comical expression on my face, for huge amount of pride radiating off of my mother, and most of all, for the tiny plant that I held in my hands.

"What cha looking at?" Someone said loudly. I jumped and snapped the photo album closed, only to find the grinning expression of my best friend.  
"Is it really necessary for you to do that, Jay?" I snapped. As always though, the sharpness in my tone had no effect on him.  
"Ooh, a bit peeved today are we?" He said, his grin widening, "No worries darl, I brought pizza!" He plopped himself onto the couch next to me, cross legged, and opened the pizza box.  
I sighed dramatically and said, "You know I can't stay mad at you."  
"Erh norw." He attempted to say with a mouthful of pizza. I laughed and grabbed a slice. "Taking a trip down memory lane?" He asked once he had swallowed, he indicated the photo album that was still sitting snuggly in my lap. I nodded awkwardly. I knew where this was going; he wanted to go through the album with me.  
Jay and I have been friends for as long as I can remember and I have told him (almost) all of my secrets, I was there for him when he came out to his parents, when he told a guy that he loved him for the first time, just as he was there for me every time I needed a shoulder. There was no use trying to hide something as silly as a photo album from him, but the air the room was happy and I didn't want to sabotage that by going through my depressing childhood. It is basically a visual timeline that shows the amount of friends at my birthday parties slowly diminishing.  
"Sorry, no time for distractions!" I quickly stated, "I've gotta feed Diona, and then we have to get going. It's a big day today." I stood up and put the album back into the cupboard with all the others.  
"Aww, little Mimmy is finally leaving the nest." He teased, batting his eyelids.  
"Oh shut up! And don't call me that!" I snapped. I turned on my heel and walked down the corridor, smiling to myself.

My parents are freaks. My dad is obsessed with birds and my mom is just as equally obsessed with plants. When I was born, they literally flipped a coin to decide who got to choose my first name. My mom won and I was named Mimosa Violet. A Mimosa Pudica is my mom's favorite plant because she can spend hours poking it and watching the leaves retract at her touch. Like I said, my parents are freaks. Although most people think that my second name comes from the flower, Violet, it was actually chosen by my dad. He says that I reminded him of a Violet Crowned Humming Bird when I was born because of my weird purple tinge. Freaks. Unfortunately, 'freak', seems to have somehow appeared in my genetic makeup. I suppose between my mom with her collection of 'exotic' plants and my dad's alleged conversations with the birds that he lures into the garden, I didn't stand much chance in turning out normal. However, I guess even if there was a tiny chance that I wouldn't follow in my parents' footsteps... maybe there might have still been some hope when I was younger… but all of that 'normalness' would have vanished completely on the day that I met Diona.

I stepped into my room and welcomed the sight of the boxes that were dispersed; some were closed, sealed, and labeled, while others were still half empty. My favorite sight in this room however, was of course my beautiful friend sitting in the corner. I sometimes have to remind myself that she is a plant; she's just a very advanced, strange looking, freakishly animated plant. Her thick stem had two large leaves sprouting from it, and just above that was her gorgeous head. I suppose that technically I should call it a 'pod' or something of the sorts, but through all my lectures from my mom, I have never recalled a pod that hasn't flowered or sprouted anything in over 15 years or even stranger perhaps, a pod with a fully functional mouth. Diona looked as comfortable as ever inside her medium sized pot. The paint had faded and was the words that I had drawn on there for a high school art project were barely legible. It was probably the only day in four years that I was slightly popular, because of the weird plant I brought to school. I hated it and was so happy when I dissolved into the background again… A wallflower I guess you could say.  
"It's your favorite day of the week, Dee!" I exclaimed, dragging my desk chair towards the side table that she rested on. I know how crazy it seems, talking to a plant and all, and my mom could probably give you a few encyclopedia's worth of knowledge as to how speech and human contact is vitally important for growing a healthy plant. I doubt, however, that she could give you much information about a plant that communicates back.  
Diona lifted her soccer ball sized head and cocked it to the side. Questioning perhaps? No, teasing more like.  
"Oh, don't play dumb with me." I said sticking my tongue out at her. She started making that cute kissing noise that she does when she wants food. "Summer is approaching Dee, this is going to start getting difficult again." I murmured to her softly while digging through my unorganized draw. "Curses, I think I packed it… no, wait never mind here it is!" I said pulling my Stanley knife out of the draw. Diona has no real way of showing her emotions, but we have gotten so close over the years that I can honestly feel what she is thinking… if that makes sense. Maybe it has something to do with energies, I don't know, all I know is that at that moment, it was as if excitement was radiating off of her… more so than normal actually. I sat down next to her resting spot and noticed how her leaves were curled up, and a slightly offish brown color. "Really, Dee? I'm not that gullible you know. It hasn't been that long since I last fed you." Almost instantly the leaves returned to their normal, lush green color and she, almost huffily, neatened them out so that they were in their regular pose. I laughed a bit and stroked the top of her dark green head, "I love how cute you are, like everthi…" I was interrupted when her kissy noises started again, this time louder and much more impatient. I sighed and rolled up the sleeve of my jersey. I was so used to the sight of the hundreds of scars on my wrist that they didn't even shock me anymore. The feeling of the blade slicing my skin hardly even stung anymore. It was old hat. I was used to it. Numb. It was for a worthy cause, I kept telling myself. I believed it too. I really, really did. It's just one of those things that you suppose would look bad to the outside world if news ever got out, but you're so used to it that it the only real worry is hoping that the news _doesn't _get out. So there I was, holding a blade to my damaged wrist for the umpteenth time, not even hesitating as I felt the cold dig into my warm skin which became even warmer when the somewhat pleasant pain sets in. Diona was practically licking her lips. Well she would be if she could. When I saw the blood ooze slowly, I went over the cut once for good measure and then held my wrist up to Dee's mouth. This was my favorite part, in a way it was almost as if she was healing me, getting rid of the evidence I suppose. Or maybe it made me feel better about self-harming, the fact that it goes to use doesn't make it seem that bad. I am also pretty sure that when she feeds off of me like this, she releases some sort of enzyme… because not once in fifteen years have I gotten an infection and the wounds seem to close up unusually quickly, but perhaps that is nothing more than good genetics.  
There was a knock at the door. I quickly pulled my arm away and rolled down my sleeve. Diona returned to her natural inanimate pose just as Jay burst through the door covering his eyes.  
"Are you decent?" He said unnecessarily loudly.  
"Yes Jay." I replied, trying to keep the annoyance out of my tone. He took his hand away from his face and his eyes widened in shock.  
"Whoa, Honey, that thing has grown! What have you been feeding it?"  
"What are you talking about? She hasn't grown since… whoa!" I turned to face Diona again and she really did look quite substantially larger than just a few moments ago. "Err, maybe I just didn't notice until you pointed it out, it could be like a new phase or something… maybe she's only becoming an adult plant now or something." Jay looked convinced by my explanation, but I wasn't fooling myself. The fact that her head looked relatively larger might be excusable, but the fact that there were cracks developing in the pot where her roots were trying to escape, was much more noticeable.  
"Might wanna replant it into a bigger pot sometime soon; that baby wants to break free." Jay said, putting his diva voice on. I laughed it off and started getting to work on the boxes. With the two of us working together we finished packing in good time. Jay and I started taking some boxes to his pickup truck and every now and then I would steal a glance at Diona to see if the cracks were getting any larger… and I could have sworn that they were.

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**AN**: This is my first fan fic, so I thought I would take it slow, gauging via the reviews to see if I need to release another chapter. I'm sorta planning on making this quite a big story, and I might write some smaller ones on the side in between the release of these chapters… Anywhore I hope you guys enjoyed it, please let me know what you think (:


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